Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/23

Rh lips are white and still—the breath has ceased! Amy holds a stiffening, freezing corpse in her arms!

This trial was far severer than its precedent, for at the very moment when her highest hopes were embraced by reality, she was called to lay them down, once more, on the altar of Faith.

And that trial did not end here. The voice of one, whose medical skill and wisdom she could not doubt, pronounced that she could never again enfold within her arms a living child of her own—could never be a mother! That crown of glory she must not even wish to wear, or the rebellious yearning would dim the lustre of a more unfading crown prepared by angel hands for the head that bows with unquestioning, unmurmuring submission to the will divine.

What? Should the walls of her secluded home never echo the melody of a child's laugh? Should no little feet, gambolling among the flowers, fly to meet her at her coming? No tiny hand charm away her cares? No lisping tongue thrill her heart with the sound of the sacred word, "mother?" Should there be no infant soul in which she could plant heavenly seed that might yield a celestial harvest! No! no! no! Hard, hard indeed, was it to say "amen," and great was the anguish of her truly womanly nature, many were her inward struggles, her tears, her prayers.

She leaned more helplessly than ever before on